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The Games I Play

This blog contains my personal written work, fiction and non-fiction. Please don’t steal any of it from me (you know the rules) or I'll have to hunt you down and whack you senseless with a heavy, wet newspaper. I started this blog because I was looking for a place to post my stories. I have come to find it's a good place to "spout off." As they say in the introduction to WWE’s Monday Night Raw, ‘Some material may be offensive to some people. Viewer discretion is advised.’

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Location: Burlington, Ontario, Canada

In the never-ending search for ever-elusive happiness, a small semblance of stability, hair-stand-on-end adventure and distant travel, the ultimate physical conquest, the perfect meal, a peaceful moment to end a harried day, a dream that doesn’t need to come true but simply must keep returning, and certain lurid things my mom wouldn’t want anyone to read about here or anywhere else, I try to find my unique and distinct place in the world through honest and forthright means of communication. In 1997 I authored and self-published a novel about a belligerent and spirited young man in the process of meeting and ushering along his adult fate. In the advertising I created for it, I wrote a little something about myself that I'd say still applies today: "Most of all, I am prolific and dedicated ... My work expresses an intense imagination and street-wiseness. It is usually reality-based, alternately amusing and poignant; often laden with my deeply facetious sense of humour. At this point in my life, I find myself drawn to tales of misguided youth and people on the brink of insanity, and stories of folks struggling to make peace with themselves and their environment."

Thursday, November 16, 2006

Here It Is!!

A handful of people may care somewhat initially, but as every aspiring novelist hopes, a few million people may eventually -- SOON -- hang on every word. Here then is the beginning of my new novel, subject of course to change at any minute:

June 15, 2001. A distinctly glorious date that is otherwise completely unidentifiable in the mind of even the most ardent intellectual.

Ten days earlier Tropical Storm Allison ravaged Houston, Texas with rain and left five billion American dollars worth of damage in its wake. Eight days before the Labour Party took the British election and Tony Blair won a second term as Prime Minister. Four days previous Timothy McVeigh was executed in Indiana for masterminding the infamous Oklahoma City bombing. Six days afterward a rare total solar eclipse obscured Earth’s view of the sun. On that same day, famed American actor Carroll O’Connor died and the legendary fictional bigotry of Archie Bunker passed on with him.

The attacks that changed Weltanschauung for a generation were 88 days away, and were still wholly malleable in the icy hearts and black spirits of the perpetrators.

Perhaps the most perfect place on the earth on this day, evening specifically, was a modern hospital in need of a good exterior paint job, which was nonetheless rather abounding with trained and experienced staff and the most modern medical equipment that could be bought or alternately obtained anywhere on the face of the planet.

The building stands at westernmost tip of Lake Ontario, which is picturesque from a well-aimed camera lens despite the nearby steel mills that predominate these shores.

The room of focus is just barely colourful enough to be considered off-white, though no one but the uncharacteristically nervous husband took notice. Even he was only aware of this for a few moments as he became progressively more distracted by the crucial goings-on, as the clocked on the wall above the omnipresent bed ticked ever so much closer to midnight.

Laughing gas was at work on the wife under the starched pale sheets. She had thus far endured several bouts of excruciating pain that required her to hunch over as she paced the halls with her spouse in tow. He comforted her however he could think of but felt rather helpless regarding her situation.

The contractions soon came ten minutes apart, at which point the recently summoned doctor ordered the nurses to ease the mother-to-be into as comfortable as possible a position. Her feet were soon in stirrups, easing the tension of an abdomen in the most progressive state of natural bloating. Still, her behaviour could soon become irrepressible despite her subdued inclinations.

Midnight passed and the culmination of the evening’s events turned into an early morning waiting game, with two nurses working happily past their usual quitting times, a family physician who never got bored with the celebration of birth, a man in his mid-30s soon to be exultant, or unconscious, and a woman – his bride of three years – feeling half way between the promised land and the front lines of a gun-less battle.

Everything sped up by the second at just before one o’clock in the morning. A glorious seriousness predominated all present parties. The doctor was in control with his hands busy between the stirrups and the nurses on either side doling out the required instruments. The husband held onto his wife’s ever-tightening grip. He tried to speak but was told to shut up.

“I need to concentrate,” Mom said between fierce gasps. Mom inhaled and exhaled repeatedly in rapid succession, seemingly too involved in the process to be aware of the pending outcome.

Dad stood back in awe as the doctor announced that he could see the head. Soon it was in his hands and then it came in contact with the air in the room accompanied by a shrill yet melodic cry.

A heavenly wail. Tender screeching.

A fresh new person exposed to nitrogen and oxygen, held up by expensive rubber gloves and experienced hands.

“Your baby,” the doctor said.

An apprehensive look.

“It’s a girl,” the doctor said with a smile, holding her out for Daddy to see.

Daddy gazed at the face longingly, seeing utter perfection and nothing else. Finding his composure, he redirected his eyes to take in the reassuring presence of five fingers on each hand and an equal number of toes on each foot.

“Well?” sweat-soaked Mommy asked as Daddy turned his head calmly and smiled at her.

“She’s perfect,” the doctor declared.

“Perfect,” Daddy added sweetly, looking into Mommy’s exhausted eyes that were brimming with relief. “A girl,” she cooed and exhaled a massive breath.

Daddy leaned over to kiss red-faced Mommy before baby was swaddled in a sterile blanket and placed between them, her umbilical cord still attached. The world was suddenly just three people.

Heaven, the one in the middle primarily. The picture of pictures. The harbinger of more endless possibilities than the Lord could ever promise.

In a minute there was the rather comical sight of Daddy cutting the umbilical cord. As he repeatedly asked if he was holding the scissors correctly and cutting in the right place, the doctor joked to Mommy that there should be a class for this. Mommy said Daddy wouldn’t pass anyway.

The otherworldly delight that began at 1:17am lasted another 40 minutes or so. It would have gone on longer if not for Mommy’s unrelenting need for sleep and baby’s need to be cleaned up completely and prepared for what was to come.

With everyone moving around Daddy was soon alone in the room, left to ponder. Then
came the problem. Not a physical problem of any sort and nothing that affected the birthing process or anyone involved. This was a problem due to foresight, a look to the future at what could – within the realm of mathematical calculation anyway – possibly happen if someone was inclined to be too brutally realistic at a time meant for great celebration and shared excitement.

Daddy, who was moments ago the physical embracer of this marvelous new gift, was overcome with an unspeakable fear that would soon grow into a wayward frenzy. Somehow it just occurred to him now, at what he was heretofore to call the greatest moment of his life, that he – along with his worn out wife – were from this point forward solely responsible for a fledgling person that couldn’t as much as move across the floor, or eat or drink, without their conscious action.

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